A Ghost Story
by Cordria
Summary: Happy Halloween! Maddie finds a strange toy airplane in a field, and it leads her to learning some very interesting things about her family. A spooky oneshot to celebrate the dead.


_Happy Halloween!_

* * *

 **A Ghost Story**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori

* * *

It was a toy airplane, and it had definitely seen better days. Rust clung to metal, paint chipped off plastic wings, and one of the little wheels was missing. Perhaps it had been a well-loved toy. Perhaps it had simply been left in the elements for too long. Perhaps it was a little of both.

Either way, it was carefully cradled in one of Maddie Fenton's hands. Her other hand held a small tracking device that detected the levels of ectoplasmic energy around them. Every time she swung her detector too close to the toy plane, the readout would spike. Not enough to actually indicate a ghost - but enough to show that the plane was supernatural in its own way.

"Come on," she whispered as she walked slowly through the Amity Park graveyard. She pointed her detector at every headstone, hoping for a ping of energy that would match the toy. Having covered most all of the graveyard already, she was losing hope. The gravestones still stretching ahead of her were weathered and worn; she was in the oldest section.

"It's just not worth it, Mads." Jack trailed behind her, hands stuffed into his pockets. He'd lost interest almost an hour ago.

A late October breeze made the remaining leaves on the trees rustle, and the brown dead leaves around her feet swirl and dance. Maddie shivered and looked up. Puffy clouds raced across the sky overhead. The weatherman had issued a frost advisory for that night, and a strong chance for cold rain the next day. She had to do this today - she certainly wouldn't want to be out in the weather tomorrow.

"Just a little more," Maddie replied, even though she knew there was no chance the plastic and metal toy airplane had belonged to anyone buried under such old headstones. "I'm almost done."

Jack sighed and settled onto a nearby bench.

It took only another fifteen minutes and Maddie found herself having to call it quits. None of the gravesites had matching ectoplasmic signatures. The plane didn't belong to anyone buried in the Amity Park graveyard. She scowled and stuffed her detector into her pocket, carrying the little plane back towards Jack. "I give up," she muttered, dropping down next to him.

"You gave it a good shot," Jack said. His hands were hidden in the warmth of the pockets of his jacket. "It's all you can do."

"I thought it would work," Maddie said. She tilted the plane from side to side. What was left of the blue paint on the wings glittered in the autumn sunshine. "I thought…"

Jack shrugged. "You found an old toy in a field, Mads. It doesn't necessarily _belong_ to anyone from Amity Park." He paused and then nudged her with an elbow. "And just because it gives off some faint ectosignature doesn't necessarily mean it's a relic."

Frowning, Maddie spun the remaining toy wheel. She couldn't help the thick sensation of disappointment that welled in her throat. "Yeah…"

"I know what will cheer you up."

A smile crept onto her face, even as she rolled her eyes skyward. "Fudge?"

"Of course, fudge!" Jack jumped to his feet and held out his hand. "And I know the best place in town to get some."

With a slow breath, Maddie allowed herself to be hauled upwards and directed out of the graveyard. She kept a careful hold on the little plane. Something inside of her wouldn't give up on the idea that it really _was_ a relic.

* * *

Later that night, as the wind howled and the temperature dropped to below freezing, Maddie sat at her desk in the basement and stared at the toy airplane. She ran a rag over it, wiping away the buildup of dirt and decay. Cleaner than it had been, Maddie thought she recognized it. Her son had owned a toy just like it years ago, before he'd gotten distracted by growing up.

It _had_ to be a relic. A real one.

Paranormal science flittered at the fringes of the real world. Even with the ghost attacks and all the evidence piled at their feet, most scientists still refused to acknowledge that ghosts existed… and that ghost science could have real, tangible benefits to the human race. Maddie had long since accepted that her position as a "scientist" would always exist in quotation marks to the rest of the world.

Reliquary theory was something even most _paranormal_ scientists kept at arm's length. Maddie herself had refused to touch it until just a few days ago, when she'd stumbled across this little plane. It was just a stupid toy. A toy that gave off a faint ectosignature.

There were any number of reasons Maddie could come up with to explain the toy airplane away. Any one of them would make sense and allow her to drop the _silly_ idea that she was holding an actual relic. And yet she continued to sit at her desk, staring at the bits of plastic and metal, unable to shake the feeling that the toy was important.

"Mom?"

Maddie glanced up as her daughter wandered down the stairs. The girl yawned widely, not bothering to cover her mouth, and stepped into the light cast by Maddie's desk lamp. The rest of the lights in the lab had been turned off, casting deep shadows on everything. Despite the girl being eighteen and a senior in high school, Maddie couldn't help but picture her daughter as she had been when she was six, hair in pigtails, arms reaching up to crawl into Maddie's lap and fall asleep in warm safety. "What do you need, sweetie?"

"You missed supper."

Belatedly, Maddie noticed the plate of food being held out in her direction. She took it, examining the cold pizza. "I lost track of time," she murmured, glancing at the clock and realizing how late it was.

"Yeah." Jazz pulled up a chair and settled down next to her. "That's not one of your normal inventions," she said, eying the plane.

"I think it's a relic." She took a bite of the pizza. Her stomach growled in appreciation.

Jazz was quiet, her nose scrunching up as it always did when the girl searched her mind for a lost bit of knowledge. "What's a relic?" she asked.

Maddie wasn't surprised her daughter didn't know. The girl hadn't ever been highly interested in paranormal science, and reliquary theory was pretty far out there. "The idea is," Maddie said between bites of pizza, "that ghosts can't exist in the human world without something that can keep them here. For most ghosts - _all_ ghosts, a lot of people would argue - that would be their obsession. The spirit is so fixated on one topic or thought that it's enough to hold them together."

"Like the Box Ghost."

Maddie nodded, settling back in her chair and staring at the little airplane. "Then you've got your ghosts that don't seem to have an obsession. They don't fixate on anything. But they still need _something_ to hold them in this world."

"Like a broken toy plane?" Jazz arched a dubious eyebrow.

"Yeah." Maddie chuckled. "Not very many people give the idea any sort of credence. There's no evidence for it. Just a lot of rumors and theories and ideas." She ran her finger over the plastic wings. "A relic is an important object from a ghost's past that they… I'd almost say they put a piece of their soul into it, but ghosts don't have souls. A tiny bit of themselves purposefully left behind to ground them to this world."

Jazz stared at the toy, then glanced up at Maddie. "Okay."

"I know, I know," Maddie said, putting the last bite of the slice of pizza into her mouth. "It's horribly silly. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm _right_."

Jazz's mouth twisted into a sympathetic smile. "I suppose I get that. Don't stay up too late."

"I won't," Maddie said. "Thanks for bringing down supper."

"G'night." The girl pushed out of the chair and made her way back across the darkened lab and up the stairs.

Maddie watched her go, listened to the door click shut, and then turned back to the toy airplane. With a sort of reverence, she picked it up and cradled the plastic and metal in her hands, warming up the cold toy. It almost seemed to buzz under her fingers, although Maddie knew that was just her mind playing tricks on her. She stared at it, examining every tiny little inch of it, until her eyes grew heavy and she gave up for the night.

* * *

The next day crept into view, cold and rainy just as the weatherman had predicted. Frost decorated the corners of the windows. Swirls of rain dripped from the sky and clung to the bare tree branches.

Maddie stood at the kitchen sink after the noise of the house had disappeared, cradling a cup of coffee. Jazz and Danny off to school. Jack gone to the store.

She hadn't slept much - her mind too wrapped up in the toy sitting in the basement. She knew she was getting too involved, that she needed to take a few steps back from it and ignore the problem for awhile, but her brain wouldn't drop it. There was _something_ about that toy airplane that wouldn't let her leave it alone.

Finally giving up on the idea of accomplishing anything productive that morning, Maddie set down her mostly empty cup and wandered into the basement. The toy was still sitting on her workbench. She paused, staring at it from across the lab, and then walked over to it. Picking it up, she held it close to her chest. It seemed to pulse with unnatural life.

Drawn by a sliver of thought that she never could have expressed in words, Maddie carried the toy upstairs. She grabbed her coat and hat, slipped on her boots, and stepped out into the October chill. Rain instantly found its way down the back of her neck, making her shiver.

She hurried down the street - past houses and apartments and little shops - to one of the small community parks. The trees were bare, their fallen leaves sticking in wet piles to what remained of the green grass. Gusts of wind failed to move the masses of dead leaves, although it did make the branches rustle and shake. In this ugly weather, the park was abandoned.

Maddie stepped into the cover of one of the picnic shelters and looked around. It was a horribly perfect day to summon a ghost. And she had the - theoretically, anyways - perfect object to do it with.

Breathing warmth into her fingers, Maddie debated what to do. Although Jack and she had tried many, many times over the years to summon a ghost, they'd never succeeded. Maddie had eventually decided that ritual summoning was as pointless an endeavor as trying to deflect Vlad's unwanted advances. But they'd never had a relic before, either.

Eventually she held out the toy plane and decided to go for blunt. The wind danced around her, casting freezing droplets of rain onto her skin and arms. One large droplet rolled down the wing of the airplane and dripped to the ground. "I summon thee," she said, going for forceful. "I summon thee. I summon thee. Come here, ghost."

Nothing happened. Maddie felt absolutely stupid, holding out the toy plane and standing in the cold rain. She let her hands drop to her side and looked around. After a long few minutes, she sighed. "Yeah," she whispered, not entirely sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

"What are you doing?"

Maddie tensed and whipped around. Just a few feet behind her floated a ghost. Despite being pelted by rain and wind, he didn't look wet. His white hair drifted around his face and his green eyes were bright in the shadows of the cold morning. "Phantom."

A grin twisted the corner of his mouth. "You _do_ know my name. I thought I'd forever be 'ghost'." He drifted a bit closer. "What were you doing?"

"I was trying to summon a ghost," Maddie said. Her hand stayed near the ectoweapon in her belt, even though she didn't pull it out. She didn't believe that Phantom would hurt her, but she certainly didn't think that the ghost could be trusted.

"I guess it worked," the ghost said with a laugh. "Or were you going for a particular ghost?"

Maddie snorted and chanced a glance around the deserted park. "Yeah, I was going for…" she trailed off, turning her gaze to the little toy plane.

A toy that undoubtedly had belonged to a boy. A ghost that was more than likely a child, to still be attached to it. A spirit that would show up when summoned…

Her eyes trailed back up to Phantom, who was looking at her curiously. "I think I was trying to summon _you_ ," she whispered. Her fingers tightened around the airplane - a toy Phantom had undoubtedly played with and loved as a living, human child.

"Then it _really_ worked." Phantom smiled, but the smile faded quickly. "You okay?"

It was easier to deal with ghosts when they didn't have human faces and backgrounds. Now that Maddie knew something about Phantom, she felt for the ghost in a way she hadn't before. "I'm fine," she said.

Phantom nodded, but he looked unconvinced. "Crappy day to be outside," he commented, gesturing towards the wind and rain. "Why didn't you do this summoning thing someplace warm?" His head tipped to the side, eyes lighting with curiosity. " _How_ did you summon me anyways?"

Maddie didn't think about it. She didn't think about the consequences. She just held up the hand holding the toy.

The ghost went perfectly still. Phantom knew exactly what it was. "Where did you get that?" came the whispered question.

"In a field."

"Give it back." The ghost's eyes snapped up to hers. All the lightness was gone from his face, replaced by something inhuman and hard. "Give it back _now_."

Maddie took a step back, startled by the change. "I'll trade you for information..." her voice petered out as she watched the ghost before her turn into something _else_. His fingers lengthened into claws. Fangs poked out from his lips. His eyes narrowed and flooded with red. "Phantom?" she whispered.

"It's _mine_ ," the ghost hissed, his voice barely audible above the hissing of the wind and rain.

With only her light ghost hunting equipment and hampered by the cold, Maddie had no desire to fight a ghost like Phantom. Especially in the state he seemed to be in. She carefully set the toy plane down on the ground and took a few giant steps backwards.

Phantom snatched it to his chest, his movements so fast they were barely visible. He stood there, holding the plane close, trembling and staring at her. Those odd, monster-like qualities faded until he was just a child again with wide green eyes.

"I… I didn't… realize…" Maddie whispered.

The ghost ran his finger over the plastic wing, looking so lost and young that Maddie found her heart twisting with guilt over having touched it at all. "I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry for… reacting like that."

Rain dripped down her jacket. "It's your relic."

He paused, then nodded.

"I've never found one before." With the ghost back to normal, Maddie took a cautious step forwards, back under the shelter of the picnic canopy.

The dark twist of his mouth turned into a self-deprecating smile. "Most ghosts hide theirs better."

She was surprised to be getting any information out of him at all. Unwilling to waste the opportunity, Maddie decided to keep asking questions until the ghost stopped answering them. "Where do most ghosts hide them?"

"Supposed to be in your grave," Phantom said with a morose laugh, still focused on his toy. He spun the little propellor. "Right next to your rotting corpse. Safest place in the world."

"Why didn't you?"

He looked up at her. His green eyes were shadowed and dark and empty.

After a silence that stretched on so long that Maddie was sure the ghost wouldn't answer, she picked a new question. "What if someone had stumbled on it and thrown it away?"

"To a normal ghost?" Phantom's voice was incredibly soft. He turned his attention back down to the airplane, cradling it to his chest like an infant. "Destroy the thing holding the ghost onto this world and they can't stay."

Maddie's eyes narrowed. _Normal?_ "But for you?"

A smirk touched his lips. "I'm a bit harder to get rid of."

The wind chose that moment to gust strongly, pulling at Maddie's hat. Phantom's body blurred and misted, then seemed to get blown asunder by the cold breeze. It took only a heartbeat for the glowing fog to vanish.

Maddie shivered and settled her hat more firmly on her head. She looked around the deserted park, wrapped her arms around her chest, and then headed for the warmth and safety of her home.

* * *

It buzzed in her head all day - the knowledge that Phantom had confirmed that relics were real, and that she had actually held one in her hands. She'd held the equivalent of the ghost's soul in her fingers. That if she'd dropped the toy, she might have destroyed Phantom.

Jack believed her the same way Maddie believed how big the fish Jack caught were: with a patient smile and a glazed-over expression.

The rain stopped sometime around lunch, leaving the afternoon cold and cloudy. The dreary day did nothing to allow Maddie to clear her mind of the questions swirling around inside. Not the least of those questions was why on Earth Phantom would leave something so important in the middle of an old field.

It pestered her like a fly that was too quick to be swatted. There was no possible answer that made sense to her, even with the sometimes-twisted logic of the dead. It was the next mystery to be solved.

"Mads, I love you, but you're driving me nuts with the pacing."

Maddie winced. "Sorry, Jack." She turned from the living room window and dropped onto the couch next to him. She tried to focus on the movie Jack had put in, but found her thoughts drifting again to the toy airplane and the field she'd found it in.

Maybe that was where she could find a clue to solve this - the field. She turned her head to stare out the window. The clouds were still dark and churning, but the rain had stopped and the blustery wind had died down somewhat. The next day was supposed to be relatively nice. She should go out to the field tomorrow and look around.

Instead, she got to her feet and grabbed for her coat. It was still wet from her morning adventure.

"Where are you going?"

"I'll be right back," Maddie answered with a smile. She pulled on her shoes, then walked over and landed a thick kiss on her husband's lips. "Just need to go check something."

"Does it have anything to do with that toy?"

Maddie smiled and ruffled her husband's graying hair without answering, snagged the keys and let herself outside. The field wasn't very far away, but Maddie took the the car. It wasn't a day for a walk.

The field was just as cold as she was expecting, but perhaps a little more windy. It danced around her, pulling at her hat and coat. She stuffed her fingers into her pockets, trying to keep them warm, and wandered through the wet grass. The bugs were gone and most of the plants were brown and lying flat on the ground, but some of the grasses were still green. They leaned against her legs as she walked, leaving her damp from the knees down.

It took awhile to remember where she'd picked up the little plane. It had been partially buried under the ground - only the little wheel sticking up to be seen. She retraced her steps carefully, surveying the dirt for any signs of where she'd originally dug.

She found the spot, the dirt newly churned and trampled. Surprised, she knelt down and fingered the dirt. Some of the top layer wasn't even wet. The dirt had been moved since the rain stopped a few hours ago. Confused, Maddie brushed at the dirt, digging with her fingers in the freezing soil. It took only minutes and she found her fingers brushing plastic.

Phantom had reburied his toy. She pushed the dirt back, packed it down, then settled onto her heels and stared around the empty field.

There was nothing overtly special about the field. It had once been farmland, and was now neglected and left to the wild to seed and populate. Small trees - none older than perhaps twenty years - dotted the field here and there. The remains of a rotting, collapsed farmhouse stood in the corner.

Perhaps Phantom had lived here. The toy was old enough that - _perhaps_ \- Phantom had died just before the farm was abandoned. Perhaps his death was even the reason behind the family leaving the farm behind.

A smile twisted at her lips. Maybe that helped explain Phantom's cryptic last words, about not being that easy to get rid of. Maybe the toy airplane was only part of what kept Phantom tied to this world. Maybe the farm itself was the rest of it.

But that didn't explain why Phantom had just started to appear recently. And why he understood modern technology the way he did. And Maddie wasn't sure they made that particular toy more than two decades ago.

She let out a short, annoyed breath. More theories and questions - it was all she needed. She'd been hoping to put this behind her so she could move on with her life. But it was almost like touching Phantom's relic had infected her mind in some way. She couldn't stop thinking about it. With a groan, she got to her feet.

Her eyes caught on something else - an object poking out of the ground not that far away that didn't look natural. Curious, she stepped closer, intending on digging it out. Maybe it was something that would help her understand Phantom better. Her fingers ached with the cold and, not wanting to paw through the half-frozen dirt, she hesitated. Marking this spot in her head, she hurried back to the car, dug through the trunk for that small snow shovel Jack had never remembered to take out, and came back. With a triumphant smile, she used the blade to scrape at the ground.

"A shoe?" she whispered after a moment. The toe had just barely been poking above the surface. Laces came next, with the shoe's tongue. Then a sock. And cloth that looked like mud-soaked denim.

Maddie stopped, staring down at what she had uncovered. She forehead wrinkled and she looked around the field, then back down at the shoe in utter confusion. "What… is…"

Phantom's words drifted back to her. _Supposed to be in your grave, right next to your rotting corpse_.

The shovel dropped from her numb fingers as she understood. She knew why Phantom would leave something so precious as his relic in the middle of a field. Why she hadn't found his grave at the cemetery. Her breath caught in her throat and she brought the back of her hand up to press against her mouth.

Phantom's dead body was buried here. This _was_ his grave.

* * *

Red and blue lights flashed hypnotically in the sunset. The rain had returned some time ago, coating everything in a wet sheen that reflected the lights in odd ways. Maddie sat sideways in the dry backseat of the squad car, feet dangling out the door and upper body wrapped in a warm blanket. She sipped at a bottle of water, wishing they would release her to go home. It had been _hours_ since she had called in what she had found.

A third officer - this one a younger male - approached with apologetic grin. He settled into the hard folding chair and grimaced at the cold, wet seat, but didn't get back up again. He swiped the worst of the rain off his poncho as he spoke. "Sorry to keep you, Mrs. Fenton, but we gotta go over it one more time before you can leave."

She held back a sigh, but only barely, and focused on the bottle of water.

"Absolutely great day for all this," the man muttered, pulling out a notebook and pen before asking the same question the other two officers had. "Can you tell me how you found all this?"

"I was chasing a ghost," Maddie said. "I found a relic out here a few days ago - a toy airplane - and was trying to track down the ghost it belonged to. I thought there might be a few clues out here besides the toy." She paused and looked up at him. "You're going to leave the toy alone, right? I explained why to the last guy…"

The man smiled at her. "We're doing our best. It's sort of against the rules to leave a major piece of evidence buried in the ground two feet from a dead body, but," he shrugged, "this is Amity Park. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the ghosts."

Maddie relaxed a bit. The way Phantom had _changed_ when he'd realized she had his relic still left a creepy feeling in the back of her mind. She didn't want to release that on the unsuspecting officers.

"What were you doing in the field the first time - when you found the toy airplane?"

"I was just going for a walk." Maddie shook her head. "It had been such a nice day, and my house isn't that far away, and I've always like walking through fields in the fall. I like the noise of the dead grass against my feet. And the sun glittered off something in the ground, and I stopped and picked it up and brought it home." She wrinkled her nose as she thought about it. "I'm still not sure _why_ I brought it home. It just sort of made its way into my hands and refused to leave."

In any other city anywhere in the world, the young officer likely would have met that explanation with a disbelieving look. But in Amity Park, the concept of an object being possessed and just _making_ a person do something wasn't too far out there. So the man just accepted the story with a nod, jotted a note into his notebook - which smeared with the spattering rain - and moved on. "And you think the body belongs to our local ghost."

"Pretty sure."

He tipped his head, looking at her curiously. "Why?"

"Phantom showed up earlier, when I had the relic, and told me it was his." Maddie's mouth twisted at the use of _told_ , but she didn't want to rehash the story of what had happened at the park again. "He mentioned that ghosts generally bury their relics in their graves. Phantom's relic is here, so…"

"So he's probably trying to bury it in his grave." The man brushed rain from his hat and nodded, clearly following along. "Any idea who the ghost was in life?"

"No." Maddie had never given it much thought, although the past few hours had been consumed by it. She almost felt guilty about never having questioned where a child like Phantom could have come from. If she had, perhaps she would have found his body a long time ago. Now her mind wouldn't stop spinning dark narratives about how he had ended up in a shallow grave in a field. "Do you know who he is yet?"

The officer shook his head with a grimace. "He's been down there for awhile. The homicide person from the state is suggesting perhaps a year or year and a half, so the body's pretty decomposed. They figure we're looking for a teenage male, maybe twelve to eighteen years old, with dark hair, but there aren't any missing persons in the tristate area that match that description. This isn't going to be one of those easy cases."

"Maybe you need to ask the ghost."

"Yeah, maybe." The young man huffed and sighed. "It's not very often where the sole eyewitness to a murder is the ghost of the victim."

Maddie nodded sympathetically.

"This is going to be fun when it hits the news in the morning," the man said blandly. He turned his head to glance at the news van that had arrived some time ago. Two people sat in the front seat, unwilling to venture out into the rain. The officer turned back to her. "I know you've already been told this, but I'm going to have to ask you to not answer any questions for the media. Especially in a cold case like this, we're going to need to be careful about what information is disseminated to the public and when if we want to have any real shot of solving this."

"Yes, I understand."

"You might be called to come down and answer a few more questions. We've got your phone number right?" He listed off the number, and Maddie nodded again. He closed his notebook, secreting it into a pocket under his rain-soaked poncho. He leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. "There are resources available at the station if you need them. Mental health type stuff. Stumbling over a kid's body isn't one of those things most people easily move on from." The smile on his face looked almost forced - like the young man was picturing the nightmares he'd have that night. "Don't let it eat at you, and please come ask for help if you're finding yourself needing some."

Maddie nodded tiredly. "I would just _really_ like to go home."

He stood up. "I'll go check with my supervisor, but I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to leave. Give me a minute."

She watched him walk away and took another sip of her water. Her eyes drifted back over the field - the flickering red and blue lights, the floodlamps that had been set up, the flashes now and then as cameras took pictures, the small pile of dirt Maddie could see over the dead grasses. Rain pelted down in broken waves, driven by the cold October wind.

The officer was back in a very short amount of time. "You can go," he said. "We've think we've got everything we need from you."

"Thank you," Maddie said, shrugging off the blanket and pulling her jacket close to her. She slid off the seat and winced as the rain hit her for the first time. "Let me know if you need anything."

"We might need you to help us find a ghost," the man said with tired smile. "Have a nice night, Mrs. Fenton."

"You too," she answered, pulling her keys out of her pocket and hurrying towards her car. By the time she reached it, her hair was sticking to her head and she was shivering. She slid into the driver's seat and turned the car on, cranking the heat and blowing into her fingers. It took a long time before the car warmed enough for hot air to start trickling through the vents.

Sitting in her car, staring out over the field, Maddie couldn't help but feel that the whole thing was a bit clandestine. Going for a walk in a new direction, leading to a toy airplane just barely sticking out of the ground for her to find, the whole idea being unable to leave her mind until she came back to find a body… It was almost like someone was moving pieces around and she was dancing helplessly to whatever tune they'd picked. Like someone had _wanted_ her to stumble over that body. Like the relic had been pushing her here...

Her lips tightened as she put the car into drive and headed the short distance home. Her family would probably have supper ready, and be wondering where she was. Maddie wanted nothing more at that moment than to lose herself in the warmth and safety of her little family.

* * *

"Do you even remember your life?"

There wasn't an answer, but Maddie hadn't been expecting one. She was sitting in the lab - three in the morning and she couldn't sleep - staring at an image of Phantom on her computer screen. It was blurry, and Phantom's aura made what few details had been captured impossible to make out.

"Do you have any comprehension of the fact that your body is buried in a field, or is it just another thing to you?"

Her cup of hot chocolate was warm in her hands, her feet up on the desk, the glare of her computer screen the only light illuminating the lab. Her shadow loomed huge on the wall behind her. She took a sip, eyes feeling raw and tired, and sighed.

"Do you know how you died?"

Not knowing the answers bothered her more than she could say. It had been so _easy_ to picture the ghost as some malevolent spirit - even after she'd accepted that Phantom was safer to be around than most of the others. He'd just been a ghost. A faceless, nameless _thing_ that could be hunted and studied without mercy or thought.

Now she pictured him as a child, racing around like Danny used to, with that toy airplane over his head, making engine noises. Chubby cheeks and glittering eyes and a huge personality that made everyone around smile. And she pictured him as a teenager, thin and sarcastic, with a sharp intelligence and a penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

...and she pictured him being murdered. Mercilessly killed and dumped into a shallow grave.

"Are you capable of caring about your past?" she whispered. "Does it keep you up at night, wishing for revenge?"

She couldn't picture Phantom being the type. He didn't seem overly focused on his own death, having never brought it up before. He just seemed to like hanging around and keeping the other ghosts away. Maddie had never quite understood what he was protecting, and why he showed up most often in this corner of town… but now she knew.

She rubbed tiredly at her eyes, wishing her mind would stop spinning in circles and allow her to sleep. Being bone-tired wouldn't help her think through her problems logically.

"Do you remember your family? Do they live here? Do you go watch them, wishing you could be a part of it again?"

The thought that bothered her the most was that there had been no matches to Phantom's body in the missing persons database for the local area. Nobody seemed to care that he was gone. That he'd, perhaps, been an unwanted annoyance in life and, maybe, that's why he was so focused on being a hero. Attention was a powerful force in the human mind - and perhaps in the ghost mind as well.

Eventually Maddie couldn't take her swirling thoughts anymore and reached up and flipped off the power to the monitor. The lab instantly darkened, leaving Maddie perched in an abyss with only her thoughts and a cup of lukewarm hot chocolate to keep her company.

* * *

She drifted off at some point - slumped in her lab chair - and woke up to the sounds of her family tramping around upstairs. Shaking the sleepless daze out of her mind, she wandered upstairs to make her children breakfast, turning on the news in an attempt to stay awake. Her gruesome discovery was splashed across every channel. Body found in Amity Park. Dark-haired teenage male. Anyone with any information on a boy that went missing about a year ago should contact police.

Jazz didn't pay the broadcast any attention, too focused on her upcoming test. Danny watched the screen curiously the first time it had come on before losing interest, and Jack kept glancing from the TV to Maddie, knowing she'd stayed up all night over that exact topic. Maddie eventually grew sick of the repetitive news and turned off the television.

She hung around the house in a dazed state most of the morning. Her muscles were sore and aching from lack of sleep. Desperately fighting off the nap that would ruin her _next_ night of sleep as well, Maddie binged on coffee and caffeinated drinks. Jack, after realizing the sour mood Maddie had found herself in, hid in the basement, doing something quiet.

Eventually she simply couldn't take hanging around the house. Her feet led her to the door, trying to convince her that a brisk walk would make her awake. She slipped on her shoes (still damp from yesterday) and a thick autumn coat, then stepped out into the early afternoon day.

The rain had dissipated overnight, leaving a cold breeze and the clouds behind and casting everything in dull shades of brown and gray. The sidewalks were dry, but the mounds of leaves still clung wetly to anything they touched. Huddled in her coat, Maddie walked down her sidewalk and took a left.

Their neighbor, an old widow named Mrs. Browerly, hurried out onto her front porch steps. "Hey-oo! Mrs. Fenton!" she called, waving the edge of her blanket and shuffling in her slippers.

Maddie paused, not particularly wanting to speak to the neighborhood gossip this early in the morning. Fortunately, none of the news broadcasts had stated either her name or the fact that she thought the body belonged to the local ghost. After hesitating a few moments too long to be polite, she she let out a little sigh and wandered up the woman's path. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Browerly."

"Did you hear?"

"Yes." Maddie stuffed her hands into her pockets. There was no reason to wonder what the old woman was talking about.

"Such nonsensical behavior in our neighborhood. When I first moved here, this was one of the best places to live in the city - now look at this. Dead bodies being found. How uncouth." Despite her harsh words, the woman looked delighted to have something juicy to discuss.

"I highly doubt it was the boy's fault for being there."

Sharp eyes drilled into hers. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't they say the body was found in a shallow grave? Whoever it was didn't bury themselves." Maddie shrugged, trying to ignore the fact that Phantom probably _could_ have buried his own body had he wanted to.

Mrs. Browerly's lips pursed and she leaned forwards. A new glitter had taken up residence in her eyes. "You're saying it was a murder?" The words were barely above a whisper.

"I'm not saying anything," Maddie said with a shake of her head. "All I know is what I saw on the news this morning."

"Hmm." The old woman settled back on her heels, drawing her blanket tightly around herself. "Interesting thought, though. To think - a murder in our part of the city. Housing prices will drop. All those drug lords will think it's open season in our neighborhood! Pretty soon I won't be able to leave my house for fear of getting shot by a gang!" Her voice was increasing in volume and angry tone, but the smile still lurked at the corners of her lips. "We'll need to call a town meeting on this. I want to know what the city is going to do to keep us safe."

"You do that," Maddie said blandly. "I need to keep going. I'll talk to you later."

"You do that, dearie. I'll let you know when the meeting will take place. You'll be there, I'm sure."

"I'm sure." Maddie was already walking away, the old woman's chesire cat smile following her. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Browerly."

The sound of the door clicking shut was her response.

Maddie's feet took her down the road, hung another left at the next corner, and then travelled the few blocks to where the city started to dissolve into the outskirts. Soon enough, she found herself back at the field. The cars and bustling people were gone - only a few stakes left here and there with police tape stretched between. Most of the grass had been trampled down.

The body was gone. Dirt had been pushed back to cover the hole. No doubt the entire field had been wandered through in the early morning hours.

Maddie stood at the edge of the field, her mind blank for the first time since she'd found Phantom's relic several days ago. The wind tousled her hair back and forth.

It took several long minutes for Maddie to realize she wasn't alone. A ghost stood next to her, looking amazingly real and solid in the cloudy, October day. His white hair looked windswept, his black clothes streaked with highlights and shadows.

"They found your body."

"Saw it on the news," Phantom replied with a distant shrug.

She glanced at him, startled by the uncaring tone of his voice. "Not a big deal to you?"

The ghost glanced at her. "If I told you I picked up some of the hairs you dropped on the way here, would you _really_ care what I did with them?"

Maddie shook her head, getting the point. "No, I suppose not." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Did they leave your relic alone?"

"Yeah." Phantom dug his toe into the dirt. "Thanks for that."

"You're going to get a real grave now. A gravestone. Maybe you can bury it someplace nobody will find it." Maddie wasn't sure why she cared. The ghost hadn't been a real person to her until just a few days ago.

Phantom shrugged. "Maybe."

"It'd be nice if we could put your name it. Really make it yours." She turned to look at him. He looked small and alone, staring at the field where his body had rested for over a year. "Do you remember what your name was?"

"Sure." The ghost looked at her. Light glittered in his green eyes - a devilish sort of gleam that made Maddie hesitate before she asked the next question.

"What was it?"

A grin pulled at the corners of his lips. "Telling you would take all the fun out of it, now wouldn't it?" With that, he vanished.

Maddie stood there, staring at the empty field for a long moment before turning and heading for home.

* * *

Hours later, there was a knock on Maddie's front door. She roused herself from her half-nap on the couch, paused her movie, and answered it, surprised to see one of the police officers that had interviewed her the previous day. One was the younger man, Officer Thomas, and the other an older, heavyset woman named Officer McKarren. "Can I help you?"

The man gave her a smile. "Sorry to bother you so soon, Mrs. Fenton. We were hoping your son was home from school."

"Danny?" Maddie gazed at the officer for a second, confused. "Why?"

The female officer crossed her arms over her chest. From the sour look on her face, the woman didn't particularly want to be here. "If your son home or not?"

"We have reason to believe," Officer Thomas continued, "that your son may have come in contact with the victim you found in the field before he died. Is he home?"

Maddie couldn't believe that her son would have had anything to do with a murder or a murder victim. "Yes, he's home. But what sort of reason?" She glanced from one cop to the other and didn't move from her spot holding the front door open, blocking their entrance with her body.

The woman's expression darkened a touch at the question, but Officer Thomas simply smiled at her. "The forensics team found a student ID card in the victim's belongings. Your son's ID card."

Blinking, Maddie tried to think through how a murder victim could have ended up with a copy of Danny's student ID card. Her sluggish, tired brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton.

The man didn't give her much time to think. "We have zero reason to believe Danny's been hiding information from us, or that he had anything to do with the body ending up in the field. The victim probably just picked up the card off the street or something. But we need to chase down any lead we can get. If we thought Danny had any real information to give us, we'd have called him down the station for an actual interview. We just want to ask him a few quick questions." He paused a second. "Can we talk to him?"

Still trying to get her brain to process what was going on, Maddie took a step back and gestured for the officers to enter her home. "He's upstairs. I'll get him."

"Thank you, Mrs. Fenton." The two officers stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind themselves, standing politely inside the foyer.

"Danny!" Maddie called. "Come here, please!"

It took a few seconds before she heard her son pelt down the hallway and take the steps two at a time. "Is it my friends?" Danny called as he hit the bottom step and looked up. When he saw the two officers, he froze in place, hand still on the banister. "What's going on?"

"These two officers have a few questions for you about the body that was found in the field last night," Maddie told him. Although Danny's face remained mostly blank, Maddie could see a strange sort of emotion drift through his eyes. Worry, perhaps? She narrowed her eyes slightly.

"It's not a big deal," Officer Thomas said pleasantly. His voice carried easily in the quiet house. "Just tying up a loose end."

Danny shrugged and walked over, leaning casually against the back of the couch and crossing his arms over his chest. Despite the careless attitude, Maddie could tell he was nervous, but her sleep-deprived brain was refusing to give her a good reason for it. "Shoot," he said.

The woman opened up a small notebook and dug a pencil out of a pocket. "Do you keep track of your student ID cards?"

"My what?" Danny asked.

"The ID cards you get from the school, with your picture on it." Officer Thomas flipped through his own notebook. "Do you remember what you did with the one you got last year?"

"No." Danny shook his head. "I probably threw it away as soon as they gave it to me."

"Is it possible you lost it?"

Danny shrugged. "I don't know. Those things are pointless. Why do you want to know?"

Maddie walked over and stood next to her son. Her shoulder gently bumped his. He glanced at her, but didn't pull away.

"Your ID card was found with the body that was found in the field," the female officer said bluntly. "You got any friends that went missing last year?"

Danny blinked at her, startled, and didn't answer right away. "How'd he get my ID card?" Danny asked, looking at Maddie in confusion.

"Probably just picked it up off the street," Officer Thomas answered gently. "Or, maybe, he was an acquaintance of yours. Do you know any teenage boys that vanished last year? Or moved abruptly? Maybe one that didn't attend the school?"

Danny shook his head. "No." Then he shrugged. "I'm not all that popular though. I don't know very many people."

Officer Thomas smiled at him. "That's okay. We're just trying to make sure."

"Yeah, okay," Danny said with a tight smile. "Sorry, but I everyone I know is still here."

"It was worth the time to ask," the man said, closing his notebook. He tapped his pen against the front cover. "One more question for you, and we'll leave you alone. I'm sure you have all sorts of homework to be getting to." Officer Thomas smiled. "Do you happen to know anyone with long, white hair?"

Maddie felt Danny tense. His fingers curled tightly into his biceps and he was quiet for a long few seconds before answering. "The only person I know with that kind of hair is Vlad Masters."

"The mayor?" the woman asked. Her narrow eyes studied Danny closely.

"Yeah." Danny shrugged - a tight, awkward movement compared to his normal lazy motion. "He's a family friend of ours." Maddie couldn't help but notice how sarcastically Danny twisted the word 'friend'.

"Ah well," Officer Thomas said, tucking his notebook away. "Probably just another dead end to chase down. Thank you for your time, Danny, Mrs. Fenton."

Maddie took a step away from the couch and smiled. "No problem. I'm sorry we couldn't be any more help."

"I was pretty sure this was a dead end before I left the station," Officer Thomas admitted. "But we've got to chase every lead we can get on a case like this one." He opened the door and allowed his partner to step out first. "Have a wonderful afternoon."

"We will," Maddie said, walking up and closing the door behind the two officers. In the silence of the living room, Maddie stood still, holding the doorknob with her hand, trying to process through what she'd just witnessed. When she turned around, she was alone. Danny had fled back up to his room.

Walking over to the stairs, Maddie stood at the bottom step and stared up at the second floor landing. Danny's door was closed. She could hear the faint sound of music - perhaps a video game - from down here.

She wished she would have gotten any sort of sleep the previous night. Her brain felt clogged and slow, but it kept telling her that Danny knew something about what had happened to Phantom a year ago. There was no other way to explain away his reaction to the questions he'd been asked. And it certainly helped explain why Danny and his friends had been some of Phantom's earliest and staunchest supporters.

She didn't stalk up the stairs and demand answers to her questions. Even in this sleep-deprived state, there was one thing that Maddie couldn't ignore: that last reaction from Danny when the officer had asked about Vlad.

It had been fear.

* * *

Maddie found herself unable to stick around her house. The sun was setting as she drove around Amity Park. She didn't have any sort of destination in mind - she just kept making random twists and turns. Her fingers on the steering wheel and the sound of the engine grounded her to the world and kept her thoughts away from Phantom and her son.

Eventually her car took to her a distant corner of the Amity Park suburbs. Evergreen trees shrouded a small park between a few broken-down apartment buildings. Her headlights illuminated a dilapidated swing set and a rusty metal slide. Turning off the motor and sitting back in her seat, she watched the last, red-stained remains of the sun sink below the horizon.

She sighed and levered herself from the car. Her feet wove a path through the uncut grass, trying to avoid the worst of the dips and pits in the ground. The shadows and encroaching darkness made tripping easy, and the bright moonlight made her breath glow when she breathed.

When she reached the swing set, she yanked on the chain to test its strength, then carefully lowered her weight onto the old wooden board. It held.

The swing creaked mournfully as she gently rocked forwards and back, never letting her toes leave the ground. Fingers wrapped around the cold chain, she leaned her head sideways and rested it against her wrist. Her eyes drifted closed.

"Are you sure you want to sleep here?"

Maddie opened her eyes to darkness. Stars glittered brightly overhead. This far from the lights of the city, the Milky Way stained the sky around the nearly full moon like a flowing cape that spread to the horizon. She shivered and drew herself upright. "Who's there?"

"Me."

She turned her head, only somewhat surprised to see the ghost sitting on the swing next to hers. One of his feet swung back and forth, kicking at the sand with every pass. "What are you doing here?" she asked. Her breath fogged the air between them.

Phantom smirked at her. "I'm a ghost." He waved his fingers at the sky. "These are my kinds of nights. Cold. Dark. Almost Halloween." His head tipped and he gazed at her thoughtfully. "Not such a great night for a human to be out, though."

Maddie thought for a second about the fact that she had zero ghost hunting weapons with her. She didn't even have on her ghost-proof jumpsuit, having planned nothing for the afternoon but lying on the couch. But then she let out a breath and let her worries go. Phantom hadn't hurt her yet and - assuming she was right - had no reason to do so now. "It is a nice night," she whispered.

"Are you okay?"

"No." Maddie was too tired to attempt lying. What few minutes of sleep she'd caught leaning against the chain had done nothing but solidify her need to go home and go to bed. Maddie gazed up at the moon. It seemed to wink at her, like it knew exactly what was keeping her awake and was letting her know it was in on the joke.

"Anything I can do to help?"

Maddie stifled a tired chuckle. "I doubt it," she said. "You won't answer my questions anyways."

"Well," Phantom said, "there's _won't_ , then there's _can't_."

She glanced at him. She had thought Phantom was simply being frustrating with his refusal to answer her questions; she'd never considered that he _couldn't_ talk about his life.

Phantom looked sincerely apologetic. His inhuman eyes were downcast and his white hair was tamed and lying against his skull. "I wish I could help you get some sleep," he muttered. "I kinda feel bad."

"Can you tell me what your name was?"

"No." He kicked at the sand.

"Can you tell me who killed you?"

"No."

Maddie sighed and looked away. Sitting in the cold, knowing she wouldn't get any answers, made her feel tired and achy. Her head drifted back to her arm, resting gently against the warmth of her coat sleeve.

"I always loved flying," Phantom whispered.

She glanced at him. The bright moonlight made his skin glow even more than usual.

"My dad - he took me up on a hot air balloon. It's the only thing I remember from when I was little." Phantom had a smile on his face as he talked, his voice barely loud enough to carry. "From that moment on, I wanted to be in the air. I loved planes." He glanced at her. His eyes danced in the darkness. "Well, until I discovered that there were things that went higher and faster than airplanes." He chuckled and shook his head and looked up at the stars. Maddie followed his gaze. "It's the one thing I like about being a ghost. I can go flying whenever I want. As high and as far as I want, and nobody can stop me."

Maddie smiled. "Jack took Danny up in one of those balloons too. Scared the living daylights out of me."

"Not a fan of heights?" he asked.

"It wasn't the heights," Maddie said. "It was the fact that my four-year-old was up in a flimsy wicker basket held up by nothing but a slight temperature differential." She closed her eyes a second, then glanced at him again. "Is that why you picked an airplane?"

Phantom shrugged a shoulder. "I don't think you can say that I _picked_ it. It just _is._ " The swing didn't creak when Phantom rocked back and forth. "You should go home."

"I don't know if that would help," she said softly. "I don't think I'd be able to sleep."

"Why not?"

Confessing her problems to the ghost of a child was pretty far down on Maddie's 'to do' list, but in her exhausted state, she wondered if it weren't a fitting sort of consequence for the source of her problems. "A couple of police officers stopped by today. They asked my son a few questions." She gazed at the ghost when she said her next sentence. "He knew you, didn't he?"

Some sort of emotion passed behind the ghost's eyes, but nothing Maddie could track. Otherwise, he didn't answer.

"And Vlad Masters is somehow in this too," she said quietly.

Again, the ghost didn't say anything. There was a dismal emptiness to his expression. He stared at her, then tipped his head so that his bangs fell in front of his eyes. Maddie almost reached out to brush them back, like she always did when Danny was in need of a haircut.

Her eyes felt heavy as she shook herself. Her feet pushed her forwards and back on the swing and she stared blankly up at the sky. "It's almost like… there's some sort of connection I'm missing. How everything is revolving around my family." Her voice was barely a whisper.

The stars didn't answer.

"It was me that found that plane, then what happened to you. And now there's Danny. And Vlad." She laughed to herself. "I'm not the kind of person to believe in destiny, but…"

She glanced over at the other swing and saw it was empty. Her own swing creaked to a stop, lonely echoing sounds in the dark October night.

She sighed, pulled herself upright, and walked back to her car. As she got closer, she noticed the car was already running. She hesitated a second, making sure her keys were still in her pocket, then slipped behind the wheel. The inside of her car was blessedly warm and made her fingers sting. Slipping the key into the ignition, she drove home.

Not even bothering to take off her jacket, Maddie curled up on the living room couch and fell asleep.

* * *

Danny was gone before she woke up - which was impressive, as Maddie got up in time to catch the earliest run of the news. She paced the hallway, glancing in at Danny's empty bed every time she passed his room. Eventually making her way back downstairs, Maddie made herself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table.

Five hours of sleep hadn't done enough to allow her brain to function properly, but Maddie's mind was restless. Even with the drone of the news in the background, her brain refused to let her drift back to sleep. It kept drawing painful arrows between Danny and Phantom and Vlad.

Things she'd been seeing all year jumped into clear view. Danny's hatred and fear of Vlad. Vlad's sudden return to their life right about the time Phantom died. Danny's stubborn belief that Phantom was different. The bizarre way Phantom was always where their family was. Vlad's creepy behavior.

None of it could possibly be true. All of it had to be her exhausted brain making connections that didn't exist. There was no way her husband's best friend could be a murderer. There was no way Danny could have witnessed something like that and not told her.

There was simply no way.

She pressed her eyes tightly together, rubbing at her temples. The lack of sleep was causing a headache. But instead of going to bed and solving the problem, Maddie took a couple aspirin and continued to sit at the table, sipping at her coffee. She watched the images fluttering past on the TV, processing none of them.

Jazz came down just before the seven o'clock news started. The girl quietly fixed herself a bowl of cereal and vanished back upstairs without saying a word. Maddie watched her go, smiling to herself. Did the recent lack of sleep really make her look that bad?

Then the girl stuck her head back into the kitchen - this time, fully dressed and ready for school. "Mom? Have you seen Danny?"

Maddie glanced at the clock, startled by how much time had passed without her being aware of it. "No," she said. "He was already gone when I woke up."

"Must have went over to Tucker's," Jazz said with a shrug. "I'll catch him at school." She didn't leave; she eyed her mother worriedly. "You need to sleep today."

"Yes, mother," Maddie said with a smile. Then she let the smile fade and nodded, letting the sarcasm fade from her tone. "I know, sweetie. I'll take a nap."

"Promise?"

Maddie nodded again. "Have fun at school."

Jazz grinned and vanished. The door slammed shut behind her, leaving Maddie alone with her thoughts until Jack dragged himself out of bed. She turned up the volume of the TV, hoping to drown out the worst of them. It didn't work.

When the news came to an end at nine o'clock, Maddie flicked the TV off. Her husband was still asleep upstairs, and the sudden silence in the kitchen made her feel restless. She got out of her chair and paced the first floor over and over before snagging her coat and her keys. Letting herself into her bedroom, she settled down next to Jack.

When he rolled over and blinked up at her, she smiled. "I'm going to go for a drive," she said softly.

"You just got back from a drive," he mumbled, wiping the sleep from his eyes and sitting up. "Want me to come with you?"

She shook her head. "I won't be long."

He hummed and yawned. "Why don't you drive to the police station. Didn't you say they had someone there you could talk to about this not-sleeping thing?"

Maddie pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, logging that suggestion to think about later. "Don't sleep too much longer."

He made a noncommittal sort of noise. "One of us has to sleep."

With a soft chuckle, Maddie let herself out of the bedroom and pulled on her shoes. Less than a minute later, she was backing the car out of the driveway. But instead of turning right and heading for the police station like Jack had suggested, she went left.

She pulled up alongside the field where she'd found Phantom's body and stopped the car. Resting her arms on the steering wheel, Maddie gazed at the empty expanse. The police tape was gone. The sun gleamed off the green evergreens that dotted the woods behind the field. Most of the trees reached empty branches up towards the sky; only a few brown oak leaves still clung stubbornly to their trees.

Turning off the motor, Maddie wandered into the field. Almost like a magnetic force was at play, she found herself being drawn to where the shallow grave had been. It was nothing but dirt and a shallow depression where there hadn't been enough dirt left to completely fill the hole. Shoe prints marred the soil - someone had walked here recently with a pair of those fancy men's shoes with the pointy toes.

"Why did I come here?" Maddie whispered. She pushed her hands into her pockets and sighed.

It had been so long since she'd felt _this_ broken and tired. Her whole body ached with the weight that seemed to be pressing down on it. Her mind spun with horrible theories and ideas clouded by a lack of sleep.

"Maybe I should go to the police station and ask for some help," she said, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths. Her body swayed. "Maybe Jack's right."

Opening her eyes again, Maddie turned to head back to her car, only something caught her eye. It was a broken piece of plastic with chipped blue paint. Maddie stopped, then took a careful step forwards and knelt down.

It was the toy airplane. Phantom's relic.

And it had been smashed to pieces.

* * *

Officer Thomas stood next to her car and took her statement - yet again. He sighed when he was done, staring at the words he'd written in his notebook. "I'm starting to wonder about the coincidences in this case," he muttered. "You're like a magnet for this ghost."

Maddie laughed morosely. "I'm a Fenton. It comes with the job description."

A corner of the man's mouth curled up into a grin as he closed his notebook. Then the smile faded. "So that's it. Our local ghost is gone."

"I don't know," Maddie said with a shrug. "I don't know a whole lot about relics. It's all just theory."

"I guess we'll find out pretty quickly." The officer put his notebook back into his pocket, then studied her. "Are you okay?"

Maddie bit back a sigh of her own. "I don't know," she said. "I haven't been sleeping well, I guess." Her eyes trailed across the field, where several officers were carefully measuring and cataloging the footprints. Already one of them had come over to photograph the sole of her shoes.

A small card appeared in front of her face. Maddie took it, studying the name. It was a business card for a local therapist.

"She's good at what she does," Officer Thomas said. "And it really does help."

Nodding, Maddie fiddled with the edges of the card. "I'll think about it. Can I go home?"

The man was about to answer when the heavy-set officer walked over, holding a plastic zip-bag in her hand. "Look what we found," the woman said, holding the bag up. Maddie caught sight of a few long, white hairs set inside. "Bet you a hundred bucks it matches the ones we found on the body."

The officer rubbed at his face, then nodded and let out a short breath. Turning back to Maddie, he smiled and said, "Yeah, you can go. Just please get some help if you need it. All this," he waved his hand at the field, "it's not easy even when you've had the training for it."

Maddie crawled into her car, turned it on, and drove home. It wasn't until she was sitting in her driveway, car off and the October chill creeping in, that she started to cry. She wasn't sure why - she certainly wasn't crying over the ghost - but tears streamed down her face and sobs wracked her chest anyways. Perhaps it was the tiredness and emotional unrest finally catching up with her.

She sat in her car and swiped at the snot dripping from her nose for a long, long time. After the tears had stopped, Maddie wiped her face as best she could, then walked into the house and straight into Jack's arms.

* * *

Danny never made it to school.

None of his friends had seen him since the previous day, when he'd left school to head home.

He wasn't answering his phone.

Maddie sat in a kitchen chair, listening as Jack called yet another family to see if they'd seen Danny. Her brain was roving in random circles, driven by her piqued emotions and days of sleepless nights. Her thoughts kept catching on those white hairs, on Danny's hatred and fear of Vlad, on fancy shoe prints in the dirt of a shallow grave, on a broken toy airplane with blue wings. And, for reasons she didn't understand, on the way Danny always set off their ghost detecting inventions.

"Tell me I'm wrong," she whispered when she heard Jack's voice fall silent.

"What'd you say, Mads?" he asked. Worry had crept into his voice.

"Tell me I'm wrong," she repeated, just a bit louder. "Tell me it's my brain putting together misplaced information due to lack of sleep." She stared up at her husband, desperate for him to refute the painful arrows her mind was drawing.

He settled into a chair. "I don't know what you're talking about," he admitted. "But I wouldn't worry too much. Danny's fine. Danny's always fine."

Danny _was_ always fine. But Maddie couldn't stop the nagging, horrible feeling that this time was different. She knew was exhausted and running fumes; she needed to trust Jack's opinion. With a sigh, she buried her hands in her hair.

"I'm sure he just lost his phone. He'll walk in the door any minute," Jack said. "Why don't you go try to get some sleep?"

"I-" A sharp knock at the front door broke through whatever Maddie had been about to say. She stared tiredly at the living room, watching as Jack walked over and opened the door. All her mind could come up with was ' _what now?'_

She could hear Jack's voice, talking in low tones to whoever had shown up at their house. Then came his voice, louder. "Mads? Can you come here?"

Levering herself from her spot, Maddie stepped into the living room to see Officer Thomas standing at the door. Her shoulders drooped as she noticed the sharp set to the man's face. The smiling, pleasant officer she'd been dealing with wasn't happy. "Mrs. Fenton," he said. "Your son is missing?"

"We don't know that yet," Jack was quick to interject. "He just skipped school today and-"

Maddie didn't listen to whatever else Jack was saying. She was too caught up in the dark look that had flickered across the officer's face. Something was wrong, and it wasn't just her that knew it. "What?" she asked.

"Danny knew something," the officer responded slowly, "when I asked him if he knew anyone with long white hair. The way he reacted."

Maddie nodded and walked over to her husband. She leaned against his bulk, looking for its warmth and security. "I noticed."

"Vlad Masters was seen in the vicinity of the field last night. His shoes match the prints you found in the dirt." Officer Thomas crossed his arms over his chest. "Nobody released any information about that relic - or the ghost it was supposedly attached to. There's only one reason why someone like Vlad Masters would go tromping around in a field at night looking for it."

Maddie closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than for Officer Thomas to stop talking.

"If Danny knew something… if someone was cleaning up loose ends… Mrs. Fenton, if you know something you need to tell me."

She stared into his brown eyes. "I don't know anything," she said. She shook her head helplessly. "I… I…"

Jack wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Are you saying my son is in danger?"

The officer looked grim. "I'm saying we need to find out where he is as quickly as we can. I need one of you to come with me to the station so we can start looking."

"I'll go," Maddie said. She looked up at Jack. She'd never seen the man look so serious. "You stay here and keep calling around?"

* * *

The chair next to Officer Thomas's desk was hard and uncomfortable, but it succeeded at keeping Maddie awake. She sat there, tired and sore and anxious, waiting for any sort of news on her son. Every time the door opened, Maddie would look up in the hopes of seeing someone escorting Danny into the building.

Someone had brought her a cup of coffee and a sandwich at some point. Both sat untouched on the little table.

"You need to sleep."

Maddie glanced at the chair next to her. Green eyes peered back at her from under thick white hair. "You're still here," she whispered. "But your plane…"

A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, but his expression remained concerned. "Like I said, I'm not so easy to get rid of. Go home and get some sleep."

"My son is missing," Maddie said. "Danny disappeared last night."

The ghost frowned and looked away.

"Do you know what happened to him? Do you know where he is?"

Very slowly, the ghost nodded.

"Tell me," Maddie begged. She reached out a hand and touched the ghost, but her fingers went straight through, like touching cold mist. When Phantom continued to sit there, looking anywhere but at her, Maddie said it again. "Tell me." This time, it was a demand.

"I can't," the ghost said.

The small ectogun that she kept in her belt was out before Maddie even realized she had reacted. She was on her feet, pointing it at the ghost, the tiny device wining painfully as it held a blast in the chamber. "Tell me!"

Finally, the ghost looked at her. He almost didn't seem to be really there. "Tell me what you already know."

Maddie's arms trembled from lack of sleep. She didn't want to play a guessing game with a dead spirit, but she also knew she had little choice in the matter. It was very possible that Phantom _couldn't_ tell her. She needed to know where her son was. Licking her lips, she pulled together all those painful, dirty arrows her exhausted mind had drawn. "Vlad Masters killed you last year. He buried you in that field."

Phantom didn't react - he just sat there and watched her.

"Danny was there. He saw what happened-"

The ghost shook his head. "No. Try again."

Slowly, she lowered her arms and released her hold on the trigger. She wanted to believe Phantom was helping as best he could. The high-pitched squeal of the ectogun died. "Danny knew you-"

"No."

"But-" Maddie broke off as a door slammed open. There were loud voices and quite a bit of yelling. Looking away from the ghost she was trying to get answers from, Maddie froze as she took in the people entering the room. Officer Thomas, along with a cadre of other officers, all surrounding an irate-looking Vlad Masters.

"You let me get my lawyer on the line," Vlad seethed, "and I'll have you all fired. How dare you arrest me!"

Watching the officers direct Vlad through the room and into a hallway, Maddie could see Phantom out of the corner of her eye. His slight teenage form, the mischievous tilt to his face, the way his hair fell into his eyes like it was in need of a haircut.

And her mind slotted the rest into place.

...How Danny hadn't grown an inch since last year. How he hadn't gained any weight. How all the ghost detectors went off whenever he was around. How Danny's hair always fell into his eyes like it was in need of a haircut.

...A familiar blue plastic airplane, being held over a child's head, racing down the hall and giggling at the idea of being able to fly someday. Fly like the hot air balloon had. Fly like an astronaut.

...A broken toy plane. Broken last night. Broken at the same time her son had gone missing.

Phantom. Danny Phantom. _Danny_.

But by the time she spun around, the ghost was gone.

* * *

Jack refused to believe they'd been living with their son's ghost for over a year. Maddie watched him sadly, not having any proof but the knowledge in her heart, and curled up in her bed and cried herself to sleep alone that night.

Danny never came home. Nobody could find a sign of what happened to him.

Hours passed. Then days.

It wasn't until the medical examiner compared the DNA and dental records of the body found in the field to Danny's that Jack started to understand. She found him the next morning sitting in the lab, staring at the ghost detector he'd been working on for over a year. She sat down next to him and quietly took the invention from his hands.

That was when Jack finally cried.

* * *

Two days later, Maddie pulled her car to a stop. Officer Thomas had called and said she could have the pieces of Danny's toy plane back, and she'd just stopped by the station to pick it up. It sat on the seat next to her, still trapped in an evidence bag, but she wasn't ready to go home just yet.

The shone overhead. It was the last day of October - the perfect day for ghost and haunts and tricks. Turning the car off, Maddie grabbed the evidence bag and walked down the little path from the parking lot.

Gravestones glittered here and there, surrounded by crunchy dead leaves. Soon there would be one more gravestone added to the collection. She wandered deep into the cemetery before settling on one of the benches. Resting her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, she watched the geese flying overhead.

It was nearly two hours later before arms appeared on the backrest of her bench, folded and holding up the weight of a body. "Aren't you cold?" came a soft voice.

Maddie glanced at her husband. "Not yet."

"I don't think he's coming back again, Mads." Jack walked around the bench and sat down next to her. The man shifted the bag of plane pieces off her lap, although he looked pained to be touching them at all. "You solved it."

"I didn't solve anything." Maddie watched the breeze pick up a few leaves and blow them across the dying grass.

Slinging an arm around her shoulders, Jack sighed. "He's been waiting all this time for us to figure it out. And you did. You finally listened to everything he's been telling us."

"My son has been dead for over a year, Jack, and I didn't even notice." Maddie felt tears start to collect in her eyes again. She blinked a few times, trying to force them back. She didn't want to start crying again - not here. "How did I not notice?" It was a question she'd already asked a hundred times.

Jack sighed and didn't answer. Around them, squirrels chattered and rustled in the leaves. "Come on," Jack said as he tugged her to her feet. "I know what will help."

She glanced at him. "Please don't say fudge."

Jack sighed and pulled on her hand. "Just trust me, Mads."

Maddie snagged the remains of the little plane and held them close to her chest. The tiny ghost detector she carried in her pocket beeped when she brought them too close. They still carried a tiny ectoplasmic charge. The little plane was still a relic.

"What are you going to do with that toy anyways?" Jack asked as they got back to the parking lot. His car sat next to hers.

She remembered a tiny Danny, holding his smashed toy airplane after Jazz had accidentally stepped on it. How he'd hovered next to her for hours, watching carefully as she fit every piece back together again. The almost reverent way he'd handled the fixed plane for days afterwards.

"I'm think I'm going to glue it back together," Maddie said with a sad smile. "It wouldn't be the first time."

* * *

 _Happy Halloween!_


End file.
